Week 9 Anaylsis: Bears v Huskies

Here is some football handicapping advice for the Huskies and Bears game this weekend. I post this analysis around 10 in the morning every Friday! The Bears seem to be the better team, but they suffer from horrible play calling on the 3rd downs. It should be an interesting game!

The Bears are only 2-6 against Division 1A teams but they’ve only been outgained by an average of 48 yards by a tough schedule of teams and have actually averaged 5.7 yards per play (with starting QB Maynard in the game) while their solid defense has allowed just 5.5 yppl to a schedule that would outgain an average team 6.0 yppl to 5.2 yppl. So, Cal is actually 0.5 yppl better than average on offense and 0.5 yppl better than average defensively. Cal doesn’t perform well on 3rd downs on offense thanks to horrible play calling, so they do run 10 fewer plays per game than their opponents. Cal’s star WR Keenan Allen is going to shut down for a few weeks to rest his aching knees and that hurts Cal’s pass attack. I do like the young receivers on this team, and Zach Maynard tends to focus too much on throwing to his talented half-brother, so it may not be as much of a drop in the pass attack without Allen if it forces Maynard to look for the open receiver instead of locking in on Allen (which opponents are wise to). In fact, Allen has been thrown to 90 times this season for 737 yards, which is 8.2 yards per pass attempt. All the other Cal wide receivers and tight ends have been thrown to 121 times for 998 yards, which is also 8.2 yards per pass. So, there is no evidence that Cal’s pass attack will be any worse, although the defenders usually double teaming Allen can double someone else or be used in run support – so there should be some residual affect from Allen not playing.

My math model projects Washington to run 10 more plays than the Bears in this game but actually projects Cal with 23 more total yards because Washington is a below average team from the line of scrimmage, rating at 0.3 yppl worse than average on offense (4.7 yppl against teams that would allow 5.0 yppl to an average attack) and 0.2 yppl better than average defensively (6.0 yppl allowed to teams that would combine to average 6.2 yppl against an average defense).


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